A Trip Toward the Truth

So this morning I had my three wisdom teeth removed, and thankfully all went well. It was the first time I was going to be under any sort of anesthetic gas and was somewhat looking forward to the nitrous oxide experience. I wasn't disappointed. While it wasn't fun, I think I learned a lot from it and was proud of my brief yet clearly lucid moments during the procedure. I had 5 overall, including the onset and offset of the gas. I remember being able to read the clock at different times which verified my lucidity, but what was interesting was the process and in between stages.

In my 'trip,' my mind attempted to define consciousness in a discrete format, assigning a unit of measure to an individual point of time and space. Almost like freezing a photon. And this translated into life being portrayed into a type of motion picture type which could be paused, rewound, and fast-forwarded. As I continued to play with this self-discovery of the universe, I came to a place where I faced a reflection of myself. Eager to continue to understand time and space, I wanted to proceed further but was told it was impossible; that I had reached my capacity in this moment and time and was unable to learn more about 'the truth.' This made me sad, and before I could argue, I waved goodbye to myself and had the film rewind back to the present in super speed, shaking me back into reality. At this point it was 9:46am and they were on my second tooth. I decided to try and go back, and had a similar experience.

Each time I went 'under,' it was as if the dentist's voice became stuck, like a broken record, echoing over and over until I lost consciousness. This happened a few more times, and was brought back to reality the same way as the first. It was as if my thirst for knowledge of the subconscious has its limits, and this was as far as I could go in that state.

I was also proud of myself for being able to somewhat 'control' the anesthetic effects by monitoring my breathing and staying alert for longer if I was interested in what they were doing during my return to reality. Good thing I did that anesthesia program last summer, haha.

And while being awake during those procedures would scare most people, as a future doctor (and current masochist), I was genuinely interested in what was going on and what the patient perspective would be like during those moments of 'waking up' in the middle of a procedure. If I remove my own bias, I'm sure it'd be pretty scary, and I can understand why someone would want to be completely sedated over just using nitrous oxide.

I'm also glad that my dental student involved in my care was there to assist, and even helped perform some of the extractions. I'm proud of her, and thankful for her presence - definitely helped keep me calm and reassured.

So in the end, all went well. I'm slightly swollen while writing this, and will head to the pharmacy later to pick up my well-deserved narcotics. Gonna relax for the rest of the day and try to take it easy. I'll take what I learned from this Matrix-like experience, and will look for new ways to seek out the truth.